She said the last time she felt “normal” was last autumn, when she went on holiday to France with husband Jez Hughes. But there have since been a series of setbacks, including a fall in January when she tripped over washing.

“Apart from labour, I can honestly say that I have never felt pain like it,” she wrote. “So once again, there I was, as helpless as a baby.”

Despite being told by doctors that she hadn’t suffered a vertebral collapse as had been first feared, she was left immobile.

Not ‘my new normal’

“Now some of you may be thinking that its great to be waited on hand and foot, I haven’t cooked a meal in months, or done the washing, or done any housework, or shopped. I’ve barely got off my backside to get myself a glass of water,” she wrote.

“But it isn’t. And if it wasn’t for Jez I’d have probably starved by now or been eaten by the cats.”

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She recently returned to hospital for a fever, and the cancer treatment is currently on hold while tests are carried out on “a little abnormality concerning my heart”.

She concluded: “I do not accept this is my ‘new normal’. I look forward to better days, and looking Jez in the eye and seeing my husband, and seeing him looking back at his wife.”